createvmind: Whoops! I realized an instant after hitting the Submit Reply button that I didn't answer everything you asked.The summoning of Bane was not something I put in because it related to a change in the basic nature of the gods or magic as a result of the Spellplague or the move to 4th Edition. I put it in simply because it suited the purposes of the plot.

Jamallo: Glad you liked it, Did you read it off the Sony site? If so, you're the first person I know of who's downloaded one of my stories from there.Uh...did I write one called "Looking Glass?" It's not ringing a bell.

No, I read it in of those whatchamacallits -- the thing with paper and glue -- you know, one of those things.

Next up by you will be "The Judas Tree," followed sometime thereafter by Caravan of Shadows, although I may postpone that until after I become more familiar with the WoD. I don't know why I wrote "Looking Glass." It may have been next to yours in an anthology, and I mistook it for yours.

People! Encourage your favorite Realms writers to write for other settings. Let them be a force for Good in the world, instead of a force for Hasbro.

Jamallo: Books. Right. I've heard of those.For anyone who found my previous comment cryptic, a couple of my non-FR stories are available for download at the Sonystyle site. Several others will be made available in the near future. So if you're curious to see what kinds of stuff I write when I'm not writing about Faerūn, that's one place to look.I'll also have at least four new non-FR stories in anthologies that are coming out over the course of the next year or so. And, I'm writing a non-FR novel. But I'll pimp those books when they're actually published..

I just read your short story in Realms of War, 'Second Chance' (nice work, by the way, sort of a 'Red Badge of Courage' in a fantasy setting ). Does the bard Bareris Anskuld feature in any other novels?

What can you tell me of him that isn't covered by a big, bad NDA? I mean lore, of course, not stats.

Hello, Icelander. Glad you enjoyed "Second Chance."Bareris is one of the protagonists of my trilogy The Haunted Land. The three novels in the trilogy are Unclean, Undead, and Unholy (which is coming out early next year.) If you read the books, you'll find out pretty much all there is to know about him.The events in "Second Chance" occur shortly after the events in Unclean, and well before the beginning of Undead.There's supposed to be another Bareris short story offered for free on the Wizards of the Coast website, but I don't know when it's going up. The story's written, so you'll see it whenever WotC sees fit to make it available. At this point, I'd like that to coincide with the release of Unholy, but I don't know if that's how things will actually work out.

Hello,just wanted Richard to know that I loved his novel "Unclean" and I'm waiting to put my hands on Undead, which I should receive in the following days(unfortunately I have to get them on Amazon since I guess they'll never be trnaslated in Italian).I am a Thay-fan and I am playing a Red Wizard on an online videogame's persistant world set in Baldur's Gate. Since Thayan enclaves are stricly affected by what happens back in the homeland, I inserted lotsa details from the events occurring in your novels which made many other players very curious, considering we're playing 1 year before the novel's plot and it's basically just hints for now:)Hopefully I'll bring more readers:D

Glad you liked it, Marek.You never know, the books might be translated into Italian someday. I've had books translated into a number of other languages. But I'm glad you're not waiting on that to read them.

I'd like to ask a question but I'm not sure you can answer. I'll give it a shot anyway since I don't know where to look...When you describe zulkir Nevron, do you consider him to be entirely human or is there something fiendish about him? I saw a reference of him as fiend-touched and I was wondering to what extent they meant so. In case you don't have an answer, I'll be happy with your thought on the matter

Marek: I don't recall ever seeing Nevron referred to as fiendtouched, and so I thought of him as entirely human. But it really doesn't matter in the context of my story (or your campaign, if you use him as an NPC.) He could have some demon or devil in his family tree. It might help to explain his affinity for evil outsiders, and why he's such a nasty guy.

ThanksI asked because in the campaign setting appendix on guilds he's referred to as "fiend-touched" but as The Sage says, on every other book his stats state he's human...I guess we'll never know for sure

Hi. First of, thank you for hours upon hours of emotional turmoil and enjoyment. I'm an avid reader of any and everything and the first book I read of yours was actually "On a Darkling Plane", discovering a few years ago that you walked Faerun was a happy surprise.

I was wondering if you could bonk your publisher a few times and get more chain bookstores to carry more of your titles. I'm too impatient for Amazon and such most days. I like to stroll the bookstore and get immediate gratification. Unfortunately, I live in BFE Mississippi at the moment and good bookstores are hard to come by.

Avae: You're more than welcome. I'm glad you enjoy my stuff.I'm afraid there's not much I can do about getting more chain bookstores to stock my books. That's up to the guy who orders titles for the store.In my part of the world (Florida), all the chain bookstores do carry Forgotten Realms novels, including mine. So I guess it is a regional difference.

They carry them, just not the ones I haven't read. I guess I need to just suck it up and order what I want. I didn't really think you could do anything about it, but I figured it was worth a shot. Maybe I should just open my own bookstore, none ever fully stock all the authors I love.

They carry them, just not the ones I haven't read. I guess I need to just suck it up and order what I want. I didn't really think you could do anything about it, but I figured it was worth a shot. Maybe I should just open my own bookstore, none ever fully stock all the authors I love.

Order books online.

"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."--Richard Greene (letter to Time)

I don't recall noting this bit before... I'm on the Space Coast; whereabouts in Florida are you?

You mean Cape Canaveral?

"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."--Richard Greene (letter to Time)

Yup. I'm south of there. The whole area is called the Space Coast. South of us is the Treasure Coast.

I can watch shuttle and rocket launches from my yard. I haven't done so from this house, but I've done it at other places I've lived around here.

That's neat! And I'd bet there's plenty of great wildlife there, too.

"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."--Richard Greene (letter to Time)

Yup. I'm south of there. The whole area is called the Space Coast. South of us is the Treasure Coast.

I can watch shuttle and rocket launches from my yard. I haven't done so from this house, but I've done it at other places I've lived around here.

That's neat! And I'd bet there's plenty of great wildlife there, too.

Indeed... If you love mosquitos. I don't, but they love me...

There is a lot of wildlife, though. I've seen a lot of different kinds of bugs, birds, snakes, lizards... We have a lot of armadillos, too, but their natural state seems to be dead on the side of the road. And gators, of course. I've seen mostly small ones (only a foot or two long), but I have seen some larger ones. And there was a very large one I saw out at the Cape, back when I was a kid. It's really wild out there, because NASA only clears out exactly what they need, and leave the rest utterly wild -- going out there, you can see how easy it was for the Seminoles to disappear when the US Army came looking for them. Anyway, my dad guesstimated that this particularly gator was at least 15 feet long... When the gator suddenly started swimming towards us at a pretty good speed, we got the heck out of dodge, hopped in the car, and got out of the area.

I saw this gator last year. It's a mama gator, maybe 6 feet long or so. Her babies were nearby, but I didn't get them in the pic.

Wow, thanks for the picture! When I was in Florida this past August, I saw ALLIGATORS, myself (for the first time!).

OK, I'm not going to derail the thread anymore, either. I just love talking about this stuff.

"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."--Richard Greene (letter to Time)

Here's sort of a silly Halloween related one for you Richard, since we are approaching that wonderful holiday. Well perhaps it's also a disguised attempt to ruin the mental image Szass Tam for you (and everyone :P). Is Szass Tam's true master plot, to gather the most undead ever in the history of all the planes together in order to do the largest recreation of Michael Jackson's, "Thriller" video, with him playing the role of Michael?

HA! Now the next time you picture the archlich, it will be him in a red leather suit, dancing with zombies! Takes the edge off his menace, doesn't it? ;)

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."